My Love Affair with Valentine’s Day!

You made it through Christmas and New Year’s Eve. Some of the biggest relationship holidays. However, there is one more holiday that you can’t forget which will give you the trifecta of relationship holidays. Yep, that’s right Feb. 14 otherwise known as Valentine’s Day! Honestly, Valentine’s Day is my least favorite holiday. I mean I dread Monday’s, but I really am not a fan of Valentine’s Day. Why you ask? I mean how could I not love a holiday that is about love! It’s typically associated with the color red, hearts, flowers, romance, the exchange of cards and candy. Well, wait a minute the candy part I love because I’m a lover of chocolate…candy that is.

Anyway, I’m not a big fan of this holiday because people put so much on it. They put so much pressure on the other person and themselves for this one day during the year. If your “significant” other doesn’t’ get you a gift, then your relationship is doomed or that person doesn’t’ really care about you or even like you. Give me a break, just because you didn’t get a box of chocolates on this one particular day, your relationship is in trouble? What about the other days of the year? Like Janet says, what have you done for me lately?

For me, Valentines’ Day has just not been that awesome, but to turn those negative feelings around I choose to celebrate this day a bit differently. I celebrate the women in my life. My mother and myself. I usually send my mom flowers, candy and a card and for myself I usually go to the movies or watch a movie, grab one of my favorite meals from a restaurant that I like and big box of chocolates. Then I go to sleep and when I wake up, poof! Valentine’s Day is over.!!! LOL. Hey who better to love myself than myself.

Ok, enough about my love affair with Valentine’s Day. This day of love got me thinking about some of the worst and memorable dates that I’ve had in the past. And not necessarily on Valentine’s Day. I could write forever but there is one particular date that will forever stand out in my mind as part of my hall of fame worst dates ever. Here we go!

You can only order one leg

Back in the late 90s in Atlanta there used to be a popular gym in Buckhead where one of my college friend was an employee. Because she worked there, I was able to work out at the gym for free. There was a certain trainer who made it very clear that he was interested in me. Every time I would come to the gym, he would flirt with me. Of course, him flirting with me was flattering, but I really wasn’t sure that I was that interested in him. He wasn’t bad looking, but I wasn’t really attracted to him.

Anyway, I guess he was tired of flirting with me and decided to take his chances and ask me out on a date. When he asked me, I was hesitant because like I said I wasn’t sure if I was interested in him. Instead of telling him no, I told him that I would get back to him. After careful thought and consideration, I decided that I would go back to him and say yes to a date. I figured, why not? I may feel differently about him after our date. Side note: I did feel differently about him after our date!

When I returned to the gym the next day, I told him that I would go out with him. We exchanged phone numbers. When we spoke on the phone later that night to plan our date, he said that we would go out to eat and then go bowling. I thought that was a cool date. Because I didn’t’ really know him, I didn’t want him coming to my apartment to pick me up. Therefore, we agreed that I would meet him at the gym, park my car and I would ride with him to our destination.

Here we go:

It was finally time for our date. I drove to the gym and parked my car. He met me in the parking deck. As we started walking toward his vehicle, I couldn’t believe what I saw. Do you remember the Geo Tracker? A mini version of a Jeep? Welp, he had a GEO Tracker and not just any GEO Tracker, a purple one. Now, you are probably saying, Kim you are so shallow. On the contrary. I just imagined him in a different type of ride. Back in the day, you typically saw females rolling around in a GEO Tracker dipped in the various crayon colors not usually men. But hey, if that’s what he was rolling in– no problem. I get into the car- no he didn’t open the door for me. Well, actually he did, from the inside. LOL!. We begin to pull out the parking garage, he turns on his radio and puts in a cassette tape. He turned up the volume on high. Tunes were blaring out his booming sound system. Do you all remember the group Troop? Whelp, he was blasting the song, “Spread my Wings!” he was singing loudly and was like…”oooo this is my Sh…..” I was confused! In my mind I was like, “That’s his song???” ok! When he finally took a break from singing, I asked him, “So where are we going to eat?” He said, “You will find out in a few minutes.” I said, “Ok…” But what could I do? He was driving so I guess I had to wait. A few minutes passed, and we end up in a packed parking lot. And as I was trying to figure out what restaurant we were going to, I looked to my right and to my left and…oh, there it was. BW3’s at Greenbriar. Those of you who live in Atlanta, remember that spot? In fact, BW3’s at Greenbriar was jumping during the weekend. I liked BW3’s so I was cool with getting something to eat from there. I mean their onion rings and those honey mustard chicken wings…makes my mouth water just thinking about the good eats there.

We parked the car and headed into the spot. It was jumping. We ran into some of my date’s homeboys. They were all very nice. We sat down and got menus and he asked me what I wanted to drink. I asked for a Vodka and cranberry. He said, “Um.. I don’t drink so you can’t have an alcoholic beverage.” Umm, I’m sorry, am I being punked? I gave him this funny look and said, “I don’t understand.” He said, “I don’t drink alcohol so, I’m not spending my money on you drinking alcohol when that’s not what I do.” I just responded by saying, “ok.” One of his friends, overheard our conversation and quickly chimed in and said, “Bro. let her have a drink!” My date said, “No man I’m not buying her a drink.” The friend started laughing and looked directly at me and said,” Sweetheart what do you want to drink? It’s on me.” So I said, “Aw thanks. I will take a vodka and cranberry.” I don’t think my date like that. Anyhoo, then the waitress came over to take our food order. My date asked me what I want to eat? I told him that I wanted the two honey mustard legs and an order of onion rings. He looked at the waitress and told her that we are going to have one order of honey mustard legs (they came in two) and one order of onion rings. The waitress wrote down our order and then said, “Anything else?” my date quickly answered and said, “no that’s all.” I was so confused. This fool was only going to give me 1 leg and we had to split the order of onion rings? I mean why couldn’t I have my own order? So far, this date was not going too well. Our order finally came…and there was absolutely no conversation between us. We ate our “snack” because it wasn’t dinner and we were probably out of BW3’s within 25-30 minutes. We did not stay long at all. We got back into the car, and my date popped in his favorite song by Troop, but this time he wasn’t as animated. I thought we were headed to our next stop, bowling. However, he had other plans for us. I noticed that we were headed in the direction of the gym. I was confused. I asked my date, “I thought we were going bowling?” He said, “I changed my mind. I’m taking you back to your car.” I was speechless. I had nothing to say to that. As we pulled into the parking deck, I couldn’t help but think, that I wasted my time getting dressed just to have a 30-minute date with someone who I wasn’t all that interested in. Wow! I got out the car and the dude didn’t’ even walk me to my car or make sure that I got in my car ok. Instead he just rolled up out of the garage and I never spoke to him again.  There you have it! I guess he didn’t like the fact that his friend bought me a drink and that I was not happy with my one chicken leg dinner.

That folks is one of the worst dates that I’ve ever had. Mmm…I wonder what ever happened to that guy and who he ended up with? However, I actually think that God was protecting me. Clearly, he was not meant to be in my life and for that I’m grateful. What are some of your bad dates?

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